I want to send out a clear message today about the Catholic Church. I know many Catholics are feeling persecuted, brow beaten, and tired of all of the bad press they’ve been getting recently. It doesn’t help matters when your Pope quotes a Byzantine Emperor who claimed that Islam was spread by holy war. If you think that’s bad, you need to sit down to hear this staggeringly horrible piece of news: Pope Benedict XVI was one of the masterminds behind the effort to cover up sex abuse scandals from priests. The BBC is airing a documentary tonight which clarifies this damning allegation, by pointing to an ultra secret document composed by Ratzinger calling for an abuse case to be buried, and for witnesses, victims, and any one else involved to be threatened with excommunication if they talked about it.

I want to make something very clear to Catholics at this moment: your institution is corrupt, evil, broken, and unworthy of affiliation. There is no reason to trust what the Pope does is guided by God; that such a despicable human being should hold the most holy office demonstrates just how vile your institution really is. Every single Catholic needs to abandon this system, stop going to church, and most definitely stop giving these fuckheads any money. I am not saying this in a glib way. If you want to know what a fatal blow to any institution looks like, this is it.

Imagine you are a fan of the store “Bed, Bath and Beyond”. You love the selection of home furnishings, and you’ve been a customer for years. One day, you are told that a significant proportion of store employees were secretly molesting your kids, and store managers were covering up these scandals and transferring these offenders to different locations throughout the country. Worse still, the president of the company had written a super secretive memo that stated all of these abuses needed to be silenced and that all victims had to be threatened in order to ensure they did not go to authorities. Would you continue to give this store your money? Would you tell your friends about how wonderful this store was, and recommend it to your family?

If this was happening in any other powerful institution, then trust in the organization would be shattered, and everyone would abandon it. However, because this is religion, we’re giving this one a “get out of jail free card”. Well, I say enough. I accuse any individual who still swears allegiance to Catholicism of being part of the mechanism that has led to child abuse. If you’ve ever given the Church even one dime, that is some of the money they have been using to continue to abuse little kids. Each person that trusts this institution needs to take a hard look at themselves. Is it really worth even one child suffering? Can you honestly tell me this vile, corrupt, and sick institution is worthy of being saved? The corruption and stink of evil can never be cleaned. There will always remain a secret fraternity of corrupt men with power who do as they please, content in their belief their actions are divinely ordained, and therefore acceptable. Ratzinger did what he did because he believes the Institution is more important than the countless children who have been raped over the centuries (don’t suddenly think child abuse is anything new for the church).

I don’t care if people believe in Jesus; I honestly don’t. But this is a belief that does not require a gigantic, sick, twisted organization like the Roman Catholic Church to exist. You can have Jesus in your heart and mind without the need for Bishops, Cardinals, and Popes. So long as you abandon your allegiance to this institution, I have no beef with you. Any minute you give these people money, you are allowing this to go on. No amount of ‘cleanup’ will ever expose the people involved, nor will it ever completely stop the abuse that is happening, and that will happen in the future. This institution needs to go the way of the dodo bird, and with this final revelation of just how high the corruption extends, you now have final proof of just how rotten the Catholic Church truly is. I personally feel sick to my stomach, and any mild amount of tolerance or even respect that I may have had is eroded. These monsters have declared war on our children, our laws, and our morality with impunity. We should not let this go unpunished.